Three Fox News Staffers Targeted By Justice Department
Fox News reports that three Fox staffers, two reporters and one producer, were targeted by Barack Obama’s Justice Department. Fox doesn’t have all the details yet on reporter William La Jeunesse and producer Mike Levine, but their emails showed up in a IG report regarding Fast and Furious. Either their emails were leaked by the Justice Department officials they were sent to, or the email accounts of both were subpoenaed and invaded by government investigators.

IRS Source: No Way Low-Level Paper Pushers Acted on Own – “There has to be a directive”
Last week, I pointed to a story by a Cincinnati Fox affiliate in which Queen City-based IRS agents said they were following orders to conduct ideologically specific scrutiny of groups applying for nonprofit tax exemptions. At least five employees from the Cincinnati office, which was apparently largely in charge of determining status requests, are going to be testifying before Congress.

Two IRS Offices Targeted Hawaii GOP Leader At Same Time
In what former Republican executive and activist Dylan Nonaka is calling a massive invasion of privacy that suggests a coordinated effort to target conservative groups, two IRS offices last year independently and simultaneously conducted costly audits and sought tea party-related training materials that they apparently believed could be tied to Nonaka.

True Scandal
A tea-party group targeted by Democrats gets attention from the IRS—and the FBI, OSHA, and the ATF.

Shut It Down–An Open Letter To Speaker Boehner
The revelations about the corruption and abuses of power within in the Obama administration has shown one thing very clearly…Obama has not taken care that the laws of the United States be faithfully executed.

True the Vote Files Suit Against the IRS
True the Vote, a Houston-based nonprofit dedicated to fighting voter fraud, has filed suit in federal court against the IRS, asking the court to grant its tax-exempt status (three years after applying) and seeking damages for unlawful actions taken by the IRS against the organization.

Top IRS official will invoke 5th Amendment
A top IRS official in the division that reviews nonprofit groups will invoke the 5th Amendment and refuse to answer questions before a House committee investigating the agency’s improper screening of conservative nonprofit groups.

‘When Fascism Comes to America . . .’
Liberals used to love to quote the (apparently apocryphal) line from a Sinclair Lewis character “When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and waving a cross.”

How Prosecutors Fought to Keep Rosen’s Warrant SecretThe Obama Administration fought to keep a search warrant for James Rosen’s private e-mail account secret, arguing to a federal judge that the government might need to monitor the account for a lengthy period of time.

Now The Gibson Guitar Raids Make SenseIRS Scandal – The inexplicable raid nearly two years ago on a guitar maker for using allegedly illegal wood that its competitors also used was another targeting by this administration of its political enemies.

Gun Rights

Time Warner Criticized for Public’s Misperception of Gun Crime in AmericaAt today’s annual meeting of Time Warner shareholders held at the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia, National Center for Public Policy Research Free Enterprise Director Justin Danhof, Esq. confronted Time Warner CEO Jeffery Bewkes over his company’s bias and partisan positions regarding the Second Amendment.

Hide the Decline

Environment &
“Green Energy”

Surprise! Another California Green Policy Flop
California’s “Hydrogen Highway” is a road to nowhere. About a decade ago, then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called for the state to invest more than $50 million in the program, which was to lead to the creation of 100 hydrogen fuel stations capable of serving 2,000 fuel-cell vehicles. Today, the state has a whopping total of nine hydrogen stations serving about 200 fuel cell cars.

The Apotheosis of Climate McCarthyismIt is well worth the ten minutes or so it takes to read this American Thinker post by Norman Rogers from a couple of weeks ago that reviews the work of Roy Spencer, John Christy, and others on the question of climate sensitivity, which we have covered here several times in the past. And while this review of the devastating findings of Spencer and company, and how the climate establishment reacted to try to suppress dissenting views, makes this piece worth a read by itself, the most significant part of Rogers’s post is the news item buried toward the end that Texas A & M University imposes a climate orthodoxy loyalty oath on faculty in its climate science department

Obamacare

Government in Healthcare

An Early Sign of Obamacare’s Impending Collapse?
In March, we reported that the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP), a program created to provide coverage to sick Americans who have been uninsured for at least six months, was in serious trouble. Only a fraction of the expected 400,000 people had signed up, but the program was burning through the cash allotted to the program too quickly. The administration capped further enrollments, but even that wasn’t enough to save the program.

Some unions now angry about health care overhaulSome labor unions that enthusiastically backed President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul are now frustrated and angry, fearful that it will jeopardize benefits for millions of their members.

National

Monstrous Tornado Kills 2 Dozen Children At Elementary School
An Oklahoma City television station is reporting that it is believed that at least two dozen children were killed at an elementary school after a monstrous tornado as much as a mile wide with winds up to 200 mph roared through, flattening entire neighborhoods, and setting buildings on fire.

Douglas Karpen: Another Kermit Gosnell
One reason the “mainstream” media was willing to sacrifice what precious little remains of its credibility to sweep the lurid and extremely newsworthy Kermit Gosnell trial under the rug is that it was not an isolated incident. Just under the surface of “reproductive rights” await ever more horrors to be uncovered

These united, divided States of America
We all know this country is incredibly united, politically, within demographic groups, but incredibly divided between demographic groups — almost to the point that making that observation approaches the tautological.

Texas curriculum dropped after complaints from lawmakers
The state’s regional Education Service Centers no will longer issue lesson plans – and will forbid their use after Aug. 31 – for a popular online curriculum system that became a lightning rod for conservatives who criticized it as anti-American, legislators announced Monday.

Rand Paul’s Hipster Outreach Mofo Party PlanVia Dan Foster of NRO and James Poulos of Forbes comes word of Sen. Rand Paul’s recent trip to New Hampshire to spread a much-needed message of inclusion to Republicans. As this appearance and recent showings in Iowa and elsewhere attest, Paul is openly testing the waters for a presidential run in 2016.

Durbin wonders: Does First Amendment apply to bloggers, Twitter?Thanks to the Obama administration’s attacks on the Associated Press and its representation in federal court that Fox News’ James Rosen is a spy for asking questions, one has to wonder whether the First Amendment applies to anyone in the Age of Hope and Change.

We Are Now One Year Away From Global Riots, Complex Systems Theorists SayWhat’s the number one reason we riot? The plausible, justifiable motivations of trampled-upon humanfolk to fight back are many—poverty, oppression, disenfranchisement, etc—but the big one is more primal than any of the above. It’s hunger, plain and simple. If there’s a single factor that reliably sparks social unrest, it’s food becoming too scarce or too expensive. So argues a group of complex systems theorists in Cambridge, and it makes sense.

Economy
& Taxes

The Other Tax Hearing to Watch This Week
I’ve expressed my puzzlement and disappointment here before about how Apple, like so much of Silicon Valley, is reflexively liberal in its politics. So it is with some curiosity that I note the story out last week about how Apple CEO Tim Cook was trying to “get out ahead” on the story of his appearance before a Senate committee tomorrow in Washington where he will essentially be called unpatriotic—by both parties unfortunately—because Apple doesn’t engage in the sadomasochism of bringing home to America the roughly $100 billion in profits it has earned overseas—and is keeping there to avoid America’s punitively high corporate income tax rates.

Poland Set for Biggest-Ever Increase in Military SpendingFrom Jan Cienski, Financial Times – Poland is gearing up for its biggest-ever increase in military equipment spending, splashing out $43bn over the next decade in a procurement programme that promises to be a severe test of the EU’s push to reduce national favouritism in military contracts.

The Inevitable Decline of Great BritainThe brutal murder of an off-duty soldier by two Muslim activists continues to dominate the news in Great Britain. The scene was utterly bizarre: in broad daylight, in a busy section of London, the two Muslims apparently ran the soldier down with a car, within a block or two of his barracks, and then attacked him with knives and a meat cleaver. They attempted to behead him, apparently not quite successfully, as hundreds of passers-by looked on. No one stopped them–private ownership of firearms being illegal in the U.K.–but three random women, who have been extravagantly praised for their bravery, tended to the soldier’s body and engaged the murderers in conversation, in hopes of diverting them from killing anyone else

Swedish Citizens Take to Streets to Defend Property From Rioting ImmigrantsThe decision to round up vigilantes while, according to Stockholm Chief of Police Mats Löfving, ”doing as little as possible” to stop rioters, met with a wave of protests in various social media and on the Internet. Representatives of some vigilante groups contacted Fria Tider to give their view of last night’s events.

Génération identitaire Occupies Roof of Socialist-Party HeadquartersIn France a mass demonstration (or series of demonstrations) is being held today called “Manif Pour Tous” [Demonstration for Everyone]. In essence, it’s a protest against the recently-approved gay marriage bill, but its significance transcends that. This single, seemingly trivial issue has led to a crystallisation of conservative forces in the country, in a way not seen in decades. It has been compared in significance (even by a horrified Le Monde) to the left-wing ’68 movement, but in reverse; a kind of counter-revolution. It remains to be seen whether it will have long-term effects on the politics of the country, and on issues that are more important.

The social triangleThree great forces shape a society – culture, politics, and economics. Each of them influences the other.

When “Diversity” = HateIf memory serves, Irving Kristol once remarked that the term “peace,” as it was used by the left, “is a Stalinist concept,” since the intent of the so-called “peace movement” was the unilateral disarmament of the West and the triumph of Communism. Today the term “diversity” works the same way: it has become a term meaning the opposite of its dictionary meaning, and is a vehicle for racial division and resentment.

Undoing The Brainwashing That Students Get In CollegeThis time of year, as college students return home for the summer, many parents may notice how many politically correct ideas they have acquired on campus. Some of those parents may wonder how they can undo some of the brainwashing that has become so common in what are supposed to be institutions of higher learning.

We must defend Western valuesAt least five people have been arrested in Britain since last week’s gruesome street butchering of a British soldier, allegedly by a pair of Muslim fanatics. The five are not suspected co-conspirators with Michael Adebowale and Michael Adebolajo, the alleged murderers of Drummer Lee Rigby. Rather, the five are all ordinary Britons taken into custody for shouting unpleasant remarks about Muslims or, in two cases, vandalizing a mosque and Muslim-owned shops.